Laban Lament
by SilentChelsea
Summary: Ephraim is haunted by his past. Sorrow, loss and manipulation hangs over his mind. Unable to continue, he is called to the forests outside Silent Hill to end his life but finds that mortal wounds have no effect on him within the limits of the town. Visions of his past torment and drag him towards his purpose in life; Misty Day: Remains of Judgment.


**Laban Lament **

The light that reflected off the blade dimmed as a cloud passed over the moon, throwing the scene into shadows. Off in the distance, a coyote cried out in protest as a single man shuddered for a moment, the wind kicked up. His mud-caked boots sloshed through the black tar below him as he moved closer to the edge of the bluff. A little sound escaped his lips, swept away soundlessly as the wind carried it off where no one would ever discover it. His left arm hung limp, a small knife still waiting for its moment. Ephraim reached out to catch hold of a low limb and hoisting it just high enough to raise up but not so high that it cleared his hat. The old hat was knocked loose and like the lost sound, was washed away on the night wind. Something that had become apart of him was at once removed and forgotten.

'_Won't be able to take it with me anyway.' _the words sounded broken in his head. Even his internal thoughts sounded distant and cold.

The limb tore from his hand, the bark biting at the flesh on his palm. The night seemed to mock him, the sky opening up just long enough for him to look upon the unwanted cut on his palm as it began to pool black for an instant before he was once again dropped into pitch night. His tired eyes looked to the sky, darting around to see patches of the heavens peeking through the clouds. The past mocked him through those stars and he made no attempt to make up to them. He welcome-no, encouraged their discontent and discouraging gazes upon him.

For a moment, he thought he should make some attempt to plead with the collective above him. His mind formed them into more than just orbs of burning gas, but pairs of eyes glaring through dark hoods as they watched him move closer and closer to the edge of the bluff. He would die this night, whether there was moonlight or not. The heaviness of the heaven's gaze grew more intense, weighing upon him as though it were fleshy hands pushing down on him, trying to drive him into the mud he was struggling through.

'_I never asked for much in my life.' _the voice in his head didn't even sound like his own voice. It was hollow and wore a strange vibration to it. _'I wanted to be healthy, to be my own man and love my family.'_

A short call sounded from behind him somewhere and he found himself reacting, his head whipping around quickly to look for the source of the noise. The dark forest behind him was a living, moving and breathing thing. It seemed to be reaching out to him, long hands beckoned him closer to them.

"Maybe in wanting, I deserve what I lost." His voice broke as he spoke.

Since the night the idea first popped up in his head, the idea to end his life, his voice had sounded differently. It took on a judgmental tone, even when speaking to himself when completely alone. As though he was slowly becoming someone different, like the forming of the thought from the very beginning had slowly began changing him into his father.

A sharp jab of anger and perhaps sorrow shot up his spine and he instantly straightened himself up as he began moving again. Even being a man of average stature and a blue-collar worker, he found his voyage from his vehicle to the edge of the bluff had become almost too much for his body to manage. He'd spent his entire life working, in one way or another and he never once took the easy way out. It had been his promise to his mother the early morning they sat together in the hallway just outside the bathroom.

"You promise me something, boy." His mother had said. Her voice was strained as she stared through the wall to where her husband's body hung. "You will always fight." Amelia continued without waiting for young Ephraim to comment.

He recalled the pale yellow light spilling slowly across the hardwood floors, time ticking away from the moment that his father's life had ended.

"You hear me?"

"Yes ma'am." He heard his voice ring out, though he couldn't feel himself forming the words as they wormed into his ears.

"You will be strong. You understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I don't care how hard it ever gets, you will do right be me and your father and you will never take the easy way out." Her voice remained monotone, the words coming out in a perfect beat. A tear streamed down her face and landed onto Ephraim's t-shirt, the area growing dark then the darkness quickly spreading.

Suddenly his mother's hands were around his shoulders, shaking him.

"Do you understand?!" It was a tone that he had only heard twice in his life. As he stood on the bluff, he still remembered the way his heart froze for a moment, then with the next beat, flooded his entire body with the cold flash of fear.

Goosebumps crawled slowly along his back and dipped around the left side of his torso, cascading down his arm and lumping around the handle of the knife. His eyes fell down on the knife.

The knife.

It was Keri's kitchen knife. It was a clean blade of metal nested in a deep red wooden handle. The logo burned into one side of the handle, it had been the first knife he grabbed on his way out the kitchen door. He hadn't even stopped to consider that the blade was rusting around the base of the blade. Running the tip of her finger up the handle and gently gliding it over the sharp edge, he once again finds himself falling into the learned ways of survival.

'_A knife is dangerous.' _some learned voice in the back of his head echoes out. _'You must always treat a knife with fear and respect.'_

As the sentiment sat in his mind, just starting to gestate, the sky opened up, his grip on the blade clenched and the knife was quickly brought down the inside of his exposed forearm. At first there was nothing. No pain and no blood. Just the muscles under the skin pressing upward and outward against the blade. Ephraim grinded his teeth together as he let the air slowly out of his lungs and relaxed his right arm. The moment his hand relaxed, black goo began to pump out of the open wound and drip down and all around.

Heavy drops fell to the mud below, lost forever as a slow itch crawled into the wound and fire began to pump through his veins. He slowly transferred the weapon to his right hand, the blade slipping around in the crimson covered hand. He raised the blade to his inner elbow, the skin of his left arm exposed. His fist balled as he drew in a deep breath.

"Forgive me, mother… forgive me, Keri-"

He pulled the blade down just as light and sound exploded behind him. His world rapidly explained as fear took over for the first time that night. His body acted on its own, whirling around quickly to see the trace of electrified tendrils pull up from the ground, a spider web of light staining the inside of his eyes. He slammed his eyes shut for only a second, buying himself only enough clarity to spot half of a large pine tree falling towards him, fire lighting up the area as though the sun were slowly rising over Ephraim's head. A short gasp escaped his throat as he raised his arms as he shielded himself.

His mind was muddled, unable to decide and abide by the information it was being fed. Since dawn, some eighteen plus hours previous to this point in time, Ephraim Ward had been completely prepared to kill himself. That morning, he woke, showered, dressed, grabbed the knife on his way and headed out. He set his eyes on the sunrise and just kept driving straight until the road ended. Town after town, even a few state boarders passed him by. Each sign putting more distance between himself and what was left of an old life that no one wanted anymore. Once the road had ended, he had got out of his car, left the keys on the hood and started walking towards the sunset. Once the light was gone, he wandered aimlessly.

The forest would thin out, the grow thick. He was even sure at one point the saw a lighthouse peeking above the trees but had lost it before he gained the drive to see if it was indeed a lighthouse or not. As the night set in, he grew colder and ignored it. Fog began to roll in and he quickly found himself and everything around him drenched. The heavy mist was only seen as it was upon him in the moonlight. If not for the full moon and the strangely dense and low-lying fog, he would not have been able to see anything at all.

Once feeling was gone in over half of his body, nearly all of them limbs, he had fished out the knife that had been nestled in the small of his back, tucked into his waistband. The metal was warm enough from his core to bring some comfort to his palm.

All that was forgotten in the moments after the lightening struck the thirty foot pine. At first Ephraim's mind accepted the pain that was about to come, the feel of the blade shaving through several layers of skin, fat, muscle and vein. But with the presentation of a looming danger overhead, his fight or flight mechanism kicked in and he was backing up rapidly, bloodied arms held over his delicate head and neck.

His boots sunk deep into the wet ground as he rocked back and forth trying to gain the moment quickly enough to beat the 9.8 m/s of tree hurtling towards him. Rocking quickly to the left, he feet the Earth give way as he slipped over the edge of the bluff. Panic flooded his body as his head grew light. He reached out all around him at everything as it flew by, but his hands would not grab anything. Anger flared in his mind as he grew confused and oddly tired in the situation.

'_Your hands can't work anymore. You cut too deep._'

The open mouth of a bay below him opened and swallowed him whole. Where there had been only about a twenty foot drop into more forest before changed. Dark water rushed forward and choked on him in a moment. The fall had been no more than a blink of an eye.

'_Wrong…' _His mind tried to connect the dots, but nothing seemed to make sense.

Ephraim woke to see cream paint peeling on the ceiling of a room. The first sense to come to him was a strange nausea. Something was wrong. Something so small that he couldn't guess if he was given an answer to the question. He wasn't even sure which sense it was that could sense it. Like the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu when he would wake up after a nightmare or when he was in the middle of a job and he suddenly remembered something he did as a child, but the moment he tried to think on it, it was gone.

"Forgetting something that you never knew." the voice spoke quietly.

He lifted himself up quickly, trying to sit upright and suddenly feeling strangely lethargic and as though the air was thicker than it should or ever could be.

His eyes quickly found the person who had spoken. A pretty little girl. No more than fifteen, she wore her dark brown hair in pigtails, small yellow bowties dotting the ends of each. She wore a white dress, the same pale butter-yellow as the ribbon, checked the dress. A sort of plaid color atop white stockings and white dress shoes. The very image of immaculate cleanliness, she wore a smile across her lips.

The most telling part of her was her face. He face caused a knot in Ephraim's throat as he backed away from her, scurrying off the strange bed he had been laying on. Gravity welcomed him harshly as his legs buckled under him. The ground met his chin and chest quickly as his arm shot outwards under his weight. The wind quickly knocked from his chest, he continued to move away from the girl.

"What is wrong, daddy?" her voice called out, no trace of emotion in her calls.

"You are not my daughter." Ephraim said in hissing tones.

The girl seemed to be taken back by his remark. Her eyes going wide and he jaw slacking a bit, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other.

"What?"

"You are not my daughter!" His voice cracked as he screamed the words at the small figure.

She pulled back suddenly, her expression changing to hatred towards him. She had been standing perfectly still, no more than a yard from the edge of the bed, but now she turned and ran from the room.

Ephraim's vision blurred, the image of her smearing across his field of sight. The girl seemed to move in slow motion, her voice even seem to smear into incomprehensible tones as she turned through a doorway and was gone. A pang of an old emotion rang through his chest, an instinct compelled him to chase after her. He called out the name that he hadn't spoken in over three years.

"Violet!"

His legs wobbled as he tried to give chase. His weight knocked over rusting IV drip stands and medical trays. All of them crashing to the floor like thunder.

'_Thunder?'_

Déjà vu washed over him again, but he was still moving. He cleared the corner of the doorway and found himself somewhere else entirely. What he had thought had been his current place of residence was an abandoned hospital, but before him was the long walkway of second story balcony. Confused, he looked back over his shoulder to discover that the doorway he had just crossed through now lead to a laundry room that dead-ended with heavy by-hand washing machines.

"What the fuck…?"

Not normally a man to swear, the words came upon him without restraint. Unsure where he was or where he was going, he stood in his spot for a moment, suddenly becoming aware that his clothes were caked with dried mud and blood. Huge rips and tears in the clothing reveled flesh beneath. But he no longer had his shoes. His boots as well as his socks were missing.

The only course of action for him to take was to call out again to the girl. A few croaks of the lost girl's name did not present her. Mind muddled, he moved down to the end of the balcony and entered into the large office space that held what appeared to be living space of someone that lived above the store on the first story. Everything in the house looked as though it had been in mid-use and then dropped. A light dust covered everything. His barefoot prints left a trail wherever he walked, leading his trail from the balcony, down the staircase and through the small pharmacy on the ground level.

Spotting an old coat that looked as though it would fall apart if touched, Ephraim noticed that something was sticking out of the breast pocket. He only had to step a few inches closer to notice it was not as old as everything around him. It was a handle. He pulled it out and revealed a bloody handprint circling around the handle of the knife he had used on himself before waking in the hospital room. He pulled out the handle and revealed that the blade was gone. A jagged break where the knife had endured some serious damage. Using the broken weapon, he broke in some glass behind which he could see some old medical instruments. Things that he wasn't sure every meant to cause anything but harm to the person undergoing the surgery.

A large scalpel of sorts caught his attention, but as he tried to grasp the item, he found his hands were numb. Using them as best as he could manage, he maneuvered the scalpel into his own breast pocket and then grabbed what appeared almost as a miniature sickle and made his way to the front door of the shop.

Opening the front door lead him not into some form of outside, but into a dark hallway. Not yet all the way through the doorway, he stepped back into the pharmacy. Some low level of golden light flowed through the windows of the store, assuring him of daylight outside the building but looking out the front and only door proved that the shop lead into a dark hallway. Upon moving closer to inspect the windows, Ephraim used his elbow to wipe away some of the dust covering the window. Beyond the window glass he saw a street, stretching parallel to the front of the shop, passing through the area that held the hallway.

As he scanned up and down the street, he spotted the girl in yellow running across the street and darting into another building.

"Hey, hey!" He called out, smacking the window.

The contact between his flesh and the glass conducted no feeling in his hands, but made a strange sound. He took the edge of the small sickle to the window and tapped it, expecting to hear the distinct sound of metal on glass, but instead he could hear only an extremely muted thump, almost as though there were several layers of cotton felt between the tip of the blade and the expanse of glass.

He attempted to used the handle of the sickle, but the same noise was produced. A mix of curiosity and a sinking dislike for the dark hallway at the front door lead Ephraim to try and break the glass. At first he only gave idle attempts, them he began to throw himself at the glass. When his own body seemed to not generate enough damage, he began picking up large glass bottle of medical grade alcohol at the window. The alcohol bottle cracked enough to release an odorless, yellow liquid out but the window remained fully intact.

Ephraim quickly became aware of a scent wafting in through the room. A strange noise accompanied the smell, like opening a glass jar that had been closed and sitting on a basement shelf for a decade. Stepping around the growing puddle of old alcohol he moved slowly closer to the open door. His ears detected a low rumble from inside the hallway.

The hallway was lit up just so much to present a strange blue-green tint to the walls and floor. Wooden and swollen with moisture, the walls and ground where slimy. Ephraim's hand slid easily over the surface, purchasing no grip. He brought his hand back, his skin glistening on his palm. While examining his palm he noted an open wound. A long gash, about three inches long. On either side were smaller and more shallow cuts. He recalled the source of the cuts, but could only remember pushing the limb out of his way and knocking off his hat in the dim haze of a foggy midnight. Thinking on it, his hand instantly went to his thinning hair as he ran his fingers through the sandy brown mess atop his scalp, finding clumps of mud and other things stuck there. He rub more vigorously, sending a light mist of dirt onto his shoulders and down the front of his filthy shirt.

Something moved inside the hallway. From within the darkness, Ephraim was sure that something was watching him. A being, intent unknown was observing him just beyond the reach of the surrounding light. Knowing that he would find answers only if he went into the darkness, he took his first step into darkness of the hallway. The air was heavier than it had been before. His bare foot slipped along the floor, in particular angle as the hallway seemed to be level. Another step inside produced a squishing sound as something wet slopped under his weight and bubbled up between his toes. Fighting back revolution, he took another step. Within the darkness came a new smell, no longer the scent of stale air, but of something actively rotting. The undertone was that of the rotting wood that made up the hallway. The middle tone was something like fruit rotting. He remembered the smell of late Summer when all the peaches in the backyard fell to the earth and blackened in the hot sun. The high tone was the one that pushed on him, pressing him backwards towards the door. It was foul. It was organic and he was sure it was getting stronger.

He turned just in time to catch a glimpse of arm in a butter yellow sleeve slamming the door closed. A high giggle could be heard from behind the heavy door. His hand reached for a handle, but found nothing protruding from his side of the door. Just more slick, engorged wood. Sucking in as deep a breath as he could manage, he called out to the girl.

"Open the door!" The taste of filthy traced around his tongue as he spoke. "Please… I-I think there is something in here!"

Another round of giggles somehow seeped through the door as Ephraim clawed in the darkness, the sickle that he had slipped from his hand and in his panic, he was unable to hear it hit the ground. He could feel what could be called panic rising in around the back of his mind and crawling down his spine.

'_Something is in here.' _

'_It is going to reach out and grab you.'_

"Let me out! Violet, please! Let me out, now!" His screams bounced around the hallway, deafening him.

"Why should I?" a muffled voice said through the door.

"I have to get out-I can't be in here!" His lungs began to burn as the smell grew in intensity.

"You are not my father, you said so yourself. I don't have to listen to you!"

"Violet, please! For the love of Go-" his voice was cut off by a burst of sound in the hall.

He moved on instinct, sensing something before he was able to see it. It was huge, taking up the entire height of the hallway. It growled, the sound vibrating in his chest and shaking him to his core. Few things on Earth scared Ephraim. Loss of a limb, being mutilated to the point of being useless was one of them, the other was God. He feared God ever since the Reverend had put the fear of the good book in him.

His mind flashed back to the morning of his Baptism. He was around nine or ten years old. His mother had brought him to her church exactly a month, to the day, after her husband had committed suicide. Ephraim's father, Jonathan, had been a wealthy land owner. He owned land in four states, employed over twenty-five family ran farms and also had a mineral spring on a couple of his lands that brought in all the holistic types. Their family had been wealthy since before Ephraim was born, but a couple weeks after his father's thirty-ninth Birthday, a rival land owner secretly bought out several young members of the families working for Jonathan. Six young women and three young boys claimed before a judge, that Jonathan had sexually assaulted them as well as admitted to stealing gold that had been found on the family's lands without telling them.

Jonathan was stripped of his employees, his business partners and most of his friends and family members within a year's time and soon after signing away his family's home, hung himself in the bathroom while his wife and son where in the house.

After his father's death, Ephraim's mother looked for help from anyone that would allow it to her. Because of the nature of her husband's supposed crimes, few wanted to extend a hand to help her. A charismatic Evangelical group stepped in where no others would. Father Joshua comforted the broken widow, allowing her and her young son to live in his house as they took on his religion. His mother's Baptism had been held in secret, away from Ephraim's eyes.

His own Baptism had been all he had ever seen in his time with them. He was called in by Father Joshua and told to put on a lose fitting robe. When asking his mother what the Baptism would contain, he was told that Father Joshua would be walking him out to the lake in the early morning, he'd be submerged just long enough for the observers to recite a short prayer, then he'd be a cleaned soul.

So when Father Joshua woke him that night, he had no reason to fear what would be occurring soon. He quickly changed and followed his mentor. He was lead through the house in darkness, then out through the backyard towards the shore of the lake, but instead the walked along side the lake for a distance. Sleep still hung heavily on his eyes and mind, so he said nothing. They climbed up in altitude, struggling up the side of a hill, slipping on crudely dug stairs in the earth. He wobbled slightly but Father Joshua reached out and held on to his elbow, steadying the boy in the dark.

Atop the hill was a small shed. He had been told by one of the other boys around his age that it was a storage shed, holding all the whicker furniture during the cold months. His delicate mind had decided that they were going to get a chairs to take down to the lake's edge but as the grew closure to the shed, Ephraim could see distinct pinholes of candle light leaking through the slats of wood and could hear gently cooing of human voices on the dull wind.

The door opened and revealed a hooded figure. The hood was neither colored or not colored, a sort of dingy brown-yellow that marked its use and age. The figure stood shorter than Father Joshua, but most everyone was. Father Joshua was a giant of a man, standing closer to seven feet tall, than not. He had broad shoulders, but not in the sense that just looking upon him would cause one to think of him as "buff".

The figure took Ephraim's hand and lead him into the shed. The shed was filled with people, all hooded and holding long taper candles in rusted metal holders. Before him was another set of earthen stairs leading down into a small cave-like opening. The figures began to file in and he was pulled down with them. He reserved his questions, not sure how to pose them, instead trading them for watching as much as he could manage and trying to keep a mental map of the layout.

Inside the small cave, the air was cold. A chill ran up his back as fine gravel perpetually fell on him from above. Father Joshua stood in front of him and held a red piece of fabric in his hands. He pulled a red ribbon away from a larger piece and handed it off to someone beside him. The hooded figure circled around Ephraim and began to bring the ribbon down around his eyes. The last thing Ephraim was able to see was Father Joshua placing a red hood over his head, masking his face from site completely.

For a moment, Ephraim refused to allow the ribbon to cover his eyes, but he could feel Father Joshua's gaze through the red hood. He stepped closer to Ephraim, holding out a hand, in which another hooded figure placed a spear. It did not glisten in the light as one may think, but intimidated him with the red-brown stain of its use.

"You will put the blindfold on and not remove it. Should you remove the ribbon before we tell you, we will run you through." Said the figure behind him. The voice was deep and feminine. He didn't want to believe it, but it sounded much like his mother's during the morning in the hallway a month previously.

Fear numbed him enough to allow the ribbon to settle down over his eyes, only slivers of light reaching his eyes around the edges of the ribbon on either side of the bridge of his nose.

A collective hum started to take over, a ritualistic beat echoing around the small room making Ephraim dizzy. He felt himself being physically moved, strong hands spinning him around. Once, twice, three times then all the candles were blown out. The moment he was dropped into darkness, the gentle, if not dizzying, humming turned to howls and animalistic cries as sharp edges bit at him through the darkness. Wooden spear handles banged off each other as the followers circled around him, jabbing in the darkness. A blade caught his upper arm in one place while another nicked dangerously across the back of his neck. He slapped one hand over the hot wound on his neck as another spearhead cut into his side. He cried out, but his pain was lost in the chaos.

Dropping to the ground, trying to get underneath the blows of the spears, he ripped the ribbon from his eyes. While the candles had been blown out, sunlight was beginning to filter in through the open door of the shed above. Just enough light streamed in to allow him to see a spear get knocked from someone's hands. He crawled along the ground, kicking dirt up as he moved. Once able to get his hands around the handle of the spear, he used it to knock a pair of legs off balance.

From his vantage point, he became aware that everyone was barefoot. He began smashing toes and bashing shins as he moved toward the light and the exit. It proved to be the best method and people screamed out among the mounting, inhuman growls. From above him, he saw the outlined figure of the giant in the triangular hood. He struck out at Father Joshua's feet, but found he wore thick boots, protecting him. Father Joshua hulked over him, striking downward with his own spear. The spearhead bit into Ephraim's inner thigh and sunk into a soft spot of earth. Father Joshua faltered for only a moment as Ephraim took the opportunity. He shoved his own spear upward, catching Father Joshua by the soft patch of skin under his chin.

The ground began to tremble as young Ephraim scurried backwards, up and out of the shed, not allowing himself to look back and did Ephraim in the dark hallway. He somehow managed to squeeze between the figure and one of the mossy walls. His bare feet slipped under him, but he propelled himself forward out of the pure fear of a child mixed with the hard determination of a man. He ran, pumping his legs as fast as they would slide past each other over the moist ground.

More ground and distance was put between he and whatever had tried to strike him, but Ephraim was growing exhausted from his movements. Each step seemed to be growing exponentially harder than the last. His toes began hitting the ground as though he was dragging them, even if he was sure that was not occurring. The only logic he could decide was that the grade of the hallway was increasing. There was a hill he was climbing in the total darkness.

He continued to run, then slowed to a jog and finally a walk, his lungs feeling as though they were filled with hard chunks of glass. Moving slowly up the slant of the earth caused him to gasp and wheeze as he moved, but slowly be became aware of his ability to see his feet moving him. He looked up to see a brightly lit spot.

Standing in the room, Ephraim looked around slowly. He couldn't remember how long he'd been standing there or even recall entering the room, but there he stood. The walls here a dark green wallpaper, black print. Several glass cases held strange and broken items. An old Indian knife alongside a couple clay bowls and some arrowheads. In another case was some horseshoes and photographs of old farming equipment that he could remember his father showing him once. Small title cards were place below or above almost every item in every case.

On the walls hung large paintings, again cue cards under each. One was of a building, the card under reading:

**Brookhaven Hospital (1880)**

_This hospital was built in_

_response to a great plague_

_that followed a wave of_

_immigration to this area._

_It was originally little more_

_than a shack, but it gradually_

_grew and grew._

Another painting was of cave entrance, a large tower off to the left, far in the background. Its car read:

**Wiltse Coal Mine**

Few other paintings dotted the walls. Most notable to him though was an empty space on the wall. There was a large outline where a painting would hang. Below a cue card sat.

"Misty Day, Remains of Judgment" Ephraim read out loud. "What does that mean?"

"That is for you to decide." A female voice call to him.

For a moment, he expected to turn and see the girl from earlier, and nearly did. Before him stood a women in the same outfit, though her dress and ribbons were that of almost neon yellow. The brightness of the yellow burned his eyes as though she was emitting her own light. And the woman herself, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Keri, his wife.

"No…" The word faded to a whisper at the end, his eyes growing wide as he drank in her image. Just as upon his wakening, he had seen a girl that look just left of a perfect copy of his deceased daughter, he now stood before an only slightly altered copy of his deceased wife.

"Yes." She gave him a warm smile, the air between them growing warmer.

"K…Keri? You can't be here." Water glazed over his eyes.

"I know. You never liked me in your studio." Her voice was almost honey, sliding over him completely and he felt himself relax as she spoke. "Remember when I was pregnant with Violet and you were making that painting of the story, the one about the velvet rabbit, for her?"

She moved around one of the glass cases, letting her fingers trail along the top, then dusted off her hands absentmindedly. Try as he might, Ephraim could not put his finger on exactly what it was about her that assure him that she was not Keri, other than the fact that he had seen Keri lowered six feet under the ground.

"You wouldn't let me come in or even peek. It used to make me jealous." She placed a hand on his shoulder and he shuddered, warm lumping heavily in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed hard, his eyes fluttering and failing to stay open as he listened to her. "You would become so impassioned when you worked. You never were that way with me."

He moved to defend himself, his lips falling open for a moment, but clenched his jaw closed against tightly, grinding his teeth together as she continued.

"I remember the might I found out I was pregnant. For a moment, just a moment, I was that flicker in your eyes. That same feverish look you got when you'd paint." as she spoke, she let her hand trail down his chest, skin to skin contact occurring through the holes and tears in his clothing.

"I loved you."

"That isn't what I am talking about!" she snapped.

He drew back. Her voice was not her own. The tone was that of his mother's in the hallway outside the bathroom. Keri had never raised her voice to him in anger or contempt, she'd never raised her voice to him in any way. She seemed to hear his thoughts and spread the smile back across her face.

"I know you love me." her hand was now passing over his waistband, moving over his lower regions. She used the back of her hand to press gently on him and every notion of the encounter being a dream disappeared.

A heavy sigh escaped him, a moan hanging heavy on his breath as she continued her movements. While one hand continued to press on him, the other hand pulled his head down. She grabbed him by the back of his hair and brought him down to her lips. Pleasure burst inside him as he strained against his pants and her touch, but something was wrong inside her. Her tongue flicked over his. It was cold. Something about it tasted off. As though she hand copper coins tucked away in her cheeks and an ice cube in the back of her throat. Cold and metallic. He stepped out of her grasp, finding a wall behind him. She stepped in time with him and slapped a hand on the wall, a finger on the cue card titled "Misty Day".

"You will paint it." her voice retained some element of his mother's coldness in it.

"I haven't painted in years."

"It isn't like you forget, Ephraim." her head cocked to the side. "Besides, you owe me."

Her words cut him to the core. A shiver sparked up his spine as he found himself concentrating more and more on how unlike Keri she was and almost forgetting any similarities in their appearances.

Ephraim thought back to the first and last times he saw Keri. The first time he met her was when his cousin introduced them at a Birthday party for one of his father's business partners. Even at eight he felt drawn to her, though she seemed to have no interest in him. He had seen her the following summer when he had been staying with his uncle's family at their Summer house. Her family happened to have a house on the other side of Cottonwood Lake. He had spent the entire Summer watching her until he was able to begin talking to her. As the season progressed, she became accustomed to his quiet demeanor.

After he had had the incident with Father Joshua, he had run to his uncle to help him. His uncle's wife could not turn the boy away and he was able to live with them until he was old enough to support himself. The third day he was on his own, he'd asked her to marry him. She had accepted and it had been less than two years into their marriage when she'd approached him and informed him that Violet was on the way.

The last time he had seen Violet or Keri was any day. He had set out to work, kissing them both before he had left the house. The day was to contain much excitement for his girls. Keri and Violet were going to go to the textile shop and spend the day sewing new curtains, sheets and a table cloth before the weather changed. When he had returned home, a Sheriff had been sitting on the porch. He remembered driving upon the scene and his mind shutting off.

Ephraim had pulled up, bumper almost on touching the porch. The law man had stepped up to him.

"Mr. Ward, I need to speak with you. Mr. Ward?"

The words had fallen on deaf ears and Ephraim had walked into the house and found the living room charred black. In the center of the room were two forms covered over a with large white sheet. He pulled back the sheet, shrugging off the hand of another officer who was making notes about the scene. What laid before him was something that couldn't have been human. They were black and cracked, like pieces of wood in a fireplace. A larger form was circled around a smaller form, the vague remains of arms wrapped around each other.

"A neighbor heard some screams and saw the smoke…" the officer jotting down notes said. "If they had not been as quick as they were, you may have lost the entire house."

Not since the night in the cave had the impulse to strike another human being formed inside Ephraim. His closed fist made contact with the mouth and nose of the officer, who dropped his notebook, cupping his hands over his nose and blood began to gush down the front of his face.

"You left us alone to die." She spoke softly, leaning in slightly. One of her blonde braids brushed against his cheek. Her green eyes watched every move he made. Violet had inherited her green eyes from her mother. "He had did bad, bad things to us."

Ephraim could not fully recover his mind from the past. He recalled stumbling backwards out of the house and vomiting in Keri's little flower garden.

"We uh, we think that it was probably a robbery. No one actually saw anyone, but we think that the disarray in the rest of the house points to robbery." the Sheriff had been telling him as he retched.

"If your dad had been able to hold his fortune, I could've married a man wealthy enough to protect my daughter and me." she hissed. "Instead, I get a mechanic who masturbates to his paintings and leaves his wife and ten year old daughter to die in a fire."

"I couldn't have known." Ephraim whispered.

"Is that what you told yourself every night for the _three years _of life you had without us?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because it is what you deserve." She raked a claw across his face, her nails bit into his flesh. "Took you three damn years to kill yourself all because of a promise you made to your mommy after daddy hung himself out like laundry."

"You are not Keri."

"What?" she had begun pacing but stopped at this.

"There is something happening here. I know you are not her. And that little girl, that isn't Violet."

"You think you know what is happening here?" she choked out a laugh. "Ephraim, darling. You don't have a fraction of an idea what is happening here." she waited for him to say something, but he stayed silent, eyes trained on the floor. "This is all because of you. For some reason you are special and now Violet and I are in Hell because of it."

"What? What do you mean?"

"You don't even know do you? How ignorant." she slowly turned and walked out of the room. He could hear her white dress shoes stepping along the hardwood flooring in the adjacent room.

He chased after her, but found the room empty. The room contained a bar style countertop, a single cash register nestled back in the corner. The same layer of dust covered everything in this room, including little slips of paper informing people about the building and local artists and exhibitions that would be held soon. Ephraim picked up on and examined it:

**Welcome to Silent Hill Historical Society**

**We are happy to have you!**

_In here,_

_Time stands still._

_Past, Present and _

_Maybe even, __Future__, are mixed up!_

He flipped it open to see smaller copies of some of the paintings he had seen hanging on the wall as well as some longer articles about local artists and a few in-depth interviews with who he could only assume was employees that worked there. He dropped the flyer back onto the counter when he spotted something that caught his attention. On the back of the paper was his name:

**Misty Day, Remains of Judgment **

Ephraim Ward

_Not much is known about this painting or the man behind it._

_Ward was only seen once in Silent Hill, though there_

_are rumors that he may have been part of a mysterious cult that practiced ancient rites here. Some claim that he _

_gained inspiration from the devil himself when painting this! Other rumors still claim that he painted __**Misty Day **__specifically for God! Dr. Janice Stalling will be holding an art discussion on this piece June 24__th__, 11am-2pm_

Ephraim allowed his eyes to play over the words again as he moved back into the other room where the cue card for the painting had still hung on the wall. The dark hallway's entrance was now gone, another painting hung in its place, a bookshelf beside it.

Confusing weighed on him and he allowed it to take him down the wall. He sat on the wall, head in hands while he tried to think. He remembered everything in his life up to when he woke up in the hospital, but after that there was big gaps in his memory. As if entire chapters had been ripped from the book.

He began to rub his temples when, for the first time since waking, he looked at his forearms. He pulled back his sleeves. He had recalled pushing up his sleeves before he exited his vehicle, even rolling them up, but they had since then become unrolled and button around his wrists. He popped the button open and exposed the flesh. Crooked and uneven stitches dotted his skin. Dark black against the paler skin between his wrist and inner elbow. They were truly ugly. They slanted this way and that, large and messy knots finishing up the stitches, the ends of the string used where frayed.

It was the strange fraying that drew his attention the most. He ran a finger along the frayed edges as well as the entirety of one stitch. Even the thread going into and out of his skin, was frayed. He used the side of one of his nails to separate one portion from the other, tugging it upward. It snapped easily under the pressure. His mind jumped forward as he realized it was hair, human hair that had been used to stitch up his wounds.

He began to pull at the stitches, scratching at them as a furious itch began to crawl along under his skin. He pulled the knife out of his waistband, placing the tip of the blade under the first stitch on his right forearm.

"Ephraim, don't do that."

He did not need nor want to raise his head to see the person who spoke. He knew with absolute certainty that his mother stood before him, in a pale and sickly yellow copy of the same outfit his daughter and wife had been wearing. Her brown hair white at the temples from stress and age.

Amelia appeared the same age the last time he spoke with her. She had lived with him for a little over a week sometime after Keri and Violet had died. She'd only left after he stopped going home after work, choosing to instead stay at all night cafes or sleep in his car on the side of the road.

Ephraim had never forgiven his mother for what had happened with Father Joshua. He had left the family complex alone and it wasn't until after she found out he had a daughter did she try to contact him through her brother. Amelia had continued to live with Father Joshua, even becoming one of his wives and bore a son for him, Manase. She'd also been inducted as a higher member of her faith. Ephraim had met his younger half brother only once. He had been a constant beside Amelia. He had been very aloof, often becoming frustrated and antsy when told to stay in one place and out of his mother's reach. As though he was sure if she was gone from his line of sight, he'd forget she existed at all.

She had expressed the idea of Ephraim moving back into the complex and remarrying. She boasted that Manase already had three wives and six children by the age of sixteen, which had only served to put even greater distance between his mother and him.

"Well, don't do it again anyway." Her voice was cold, but floated on the air in a singsong way.

"Hello mother." he said through his teeth, continuing to pry at the stitches in his arm with the blade.

"Oh, you aren't going to call into question my authenticity?" she crossed her arms slowly, "Not like you did with Keri and Violet. They both came to me in tears over your treatment of them."

Ephraim did not even bother trying to decipher what was off about his mother. He just let himself believe that it was her while knowing it wasn't.

"When did you pass away, mother?"

"In about three weeks." she freed a hand and placed it over her heart. "Don't worry, it'll strike while I am asleep."

"How do you know?"

"Does it really matter?" she retorted.

"Guess not."

"Stop it."

Ephraim ignored her, finally working one stitch free. He set the knife on the ground between his legs and began to pull at the strands, freeing them from his skin. Yellow-brown puss broke free and began to leak out from the opened stitch. It wasn't until the smell hit him that he felt his gag reflex reject his actions. The smell was indescribable. A pungent odor of rotting skin and stagnant blood. He wiped the area clean with his a bit of his shirt sleeve and continued to work through the smell.

The smell became worse, hanging in his nostrils between gulping breaths of air. He abandoned the first stitch and moved on to the next, pulling and tugging, using the blade to rip the stitch out of his flesh. The brownish liquid began to gush from that stitch and he moved on.

"You are being ridiculous." Amelia said in mid sigh, her words disbelieving, as though he were recounting a made up story as a child. "Come on and give me that knife, boy."

"No."

He was short, part out of anger and part because he did not want to keep his mouth open any longer than he had to. He pulled at the second to last stitch on his right arm.

"Give me the knife, Ephraim."

"No ma'am."

"You will give it to me when I ask."

"No ma'am." he said, grunting as the final stitch popped free and the wound opened up. Puss gushed, soaking his sleeve and pant leg.

He coughed and choked as he tried to escape his own wounded arm.

"I warned you." she said, taking a step backward before a large drop of brown gunk fell just where her peeling and aged white dress shoe had just been.

"Why are you here?"

"I am here to be your mother and get you to do what you need to do." for a moment, Ephraim almost believed the airs she'd put on, feigning that her purpose was to protect his best interest.

"I meant in a greater sense. Why am I seeing you, Violet and Keri?"

"We all play our part son, it isn't in your nature to ask God to explain himself to you. You are not that special."

He gave a short tone of disbelief.

"I was special enough to be brought here." he said as he began to roll down his sleeves quickly, buttoning it in place as he walked.

Back in the front room of the Historic Society, he searched for something to bandage the gaping wound. He found a telephone and yanked out the wire, wrapping it quickly around his sleeve and tying the ends together as best he could manage one-handedly. He returned to the other room and began the process again on his left forearm.

"Really now?"

"I want to go home."

"No. You left home. You came here to do something special, remember."

A knot formed in his throat. He recalled the promise and as if on cue, his mother repeated the conversation from the hallway.

"You will be strong. You understand?" the past echoed in her voice.

"Yes ma'am." he found himself saying.

"I don't care how hard it ever gets, you will do right be me and your father and you will never take the easy way out." Her voice was monotone, the words coming out in a perfect beat once again. She waited a few beats, then screamed out at him. "Do you understand?!"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't repair the promise I asked you to make."

He found a roll of some sort of packing tape. He used it to wrap his left arm upon finishing ripping open the stitches. He tossed what remained of the roll on to the countertop and began digging around in the drawer that he had found the tape in originally.

"What are you looking for?" Amelia asked, as her hands worked quietly to press flat a few folds in the front of her sickly yellow dress.

"A key I guess."

"A key?"

"Something to open the door."

She let a small and low purr-like laugh roll through her body and press against him.

"What makes you think that the door can open?"

The question struck him suddenly. His hands stopped blindly searching through the cluttered drawer of papers and odd looking pens, dust slowly settling back down. He had not expected to not have the door open and with her raised question, he wondered what would be on the other side of the door should he open it. His mind stretched out, fabricating darkness that choked and bit at him behind his eyelids.

"The door has to open."

"Your giving orders now? My, my. You sure have changed."

He abandoned the counter and walked to the double doors. They held simplistic and patterned stained glass. Through the glass, the same dull haze of fogged sunlight filtered through. He pressed his hand against the glass and quickly drew his hand back, groaning in pain. Where his hand had made contact with the glass, each surface space was shiny and red, as though he'd touched something heated to a glowing red by fire. He looked to the glass and then again to his hand. He had felt nothing but the after effect of the burn.

"Your hands are still numbed."

"Doesn't matter much to me now."

"Well it matters a great much to me. You'll need those hands."

"Why?"

"Misty Day" she hissed as a snake about to attack. He turned to look at her, a darkness streaking across her face. "Remains of Judgment."

"I don't paint anymore mother. Not since…" his voice faltered. He mind flicked back to the burned living room for a beat.

"They have nothing to do with this."

"Doesn't matter either way. I don't paint anymore." he moved to press passed her, moving back into the back room and receiving a book from the shelf. A heavy tome with red cover, leather cracked with age and use.

"Son, you will paint it."

He moved passed her, gaining speed as her moved towards the front doors, aiming for the delicate glass. He hurled his weight into the book, throwing it forward with all his force and shattering the window. Momentarily startled, he had assumed that the glass would not break just as the glass in the pharmacy had refused to, but the colored shards of glass gave way easily under the weight of the book. The room seemed to be pressurized. The shards of color broke outward by the force of the strike, then rushed in to greet him. Sharp blades bit at his face and neck as air fizzed and hissed, flowing viciously into the room. He covered his face, struggling to find shelter from the air drowning him.

As he dropped below the sill of the window, he pressed his back against the door and felt the vibration rumble through his entire body. Something deep within him told him to move and he did so.

A large metallic spearhead burst through the wood of the door, a cloaked appendage reached in through the space once occupied by glass. It thrashed violently around in search of him. Ephraim crawled away quickly, hands and knees moving quickly to get him from harms reach. His forearms began to ache dully as he forced them to move quickly across the floor.

The wind moving began to grow even harsher, as though Ephraim was in the middle of a storm. The wind pushed through the door, large pieces splintering off and biting out at him as he moved. He moved, staying low and heading towards where his mother had still stood, hands clasped together at her chest. He stood and wrapped a hand around her arm, trying to tow her along into the safety of the backroom, but she refused to move, shaking her head slowly in the deafening wind.

Air howled in his ears as he called out to her, finding her weight unmovable despite her small frame and age. A large chunk of the door broke free and flew towards him, hitting him square in his torso and knocking him to the ground. He struggled quickly to raise to his feet. Ephraim turned to reach once again for his mother, when the figure caught his eye. An amazing height, though human in form it towered above both him and his mother. The tip of its triangular head only inches from the wooden roof making it some seven foot tall. A gloved and robed arm raised, a spear in hand and ran through his mother, piercing her heart. Blood splattered across his face as the spear continued to move towards him. Shock shook him to his core as he back away quickly.

In the back room, he slammed the double doors between it and the front room closed, then struggled to move the bookcase. He managed to dance it away from the wall, but was not able to get it any closer to the door. The howl grew louder as he squeezed himself between the back of the shelf and the wall. He laid his hands flat against the wall and pressed his back to the bookshelf. The wooden beast rocked for a moment, then tumbled to the ground, the books piling quickly under it.

Unable to find anything else to use as a block, he watched in horror as the doors began to open, the thing beyond it proving to be much stronger than he or the bookcase. His eyes scanned as he looked for a weapon. Seeing nothing but a door that he had not noticed and was only about half sure had not been there a moment before. He rushed to the door and threw himself through it. No though of what lay beyond, no worry of what the previous doors had lead him to, he simply acted on preservation.

Behind the door lay an expanse. As far as he could see there was a painted gray. A medium gray. Flat and dull, absorbing only at most about eighteen percent of the light that seemed to be illuminated from the very air in the container like area. No door lay on any wall, nor any windows or separated sections. Just one large box that now contained him. His eyes rolled over the scene, then returned to where the door he had entered through had once rested and found it gone. The echoes of fear and panic that _that thing _had brought on still reverberated within him. His hands itched as he rubbed numbly at the still seeping wounds across his forearms. His heart beat into his head. The resounding pulse bulged in his throat as he realized he was trapped. In a corner with no way out, though logic would dictate that with no way out, nothing could make its way in. He feared logic did not work in a linear way here, whatever 'here' was.

Ephraim took several quick steps into the room and checked over his shoulder. The wall behind him was more than just feet away. It appeared that several yards now stood between he and the wall. He started back towards the wall but his vision blurred and the wall stayed the exact same distance away. Fresh fear flooded his system, flowing rapidly through his rushed state. He lowered his head and charged at the wall, but it remained far outside his reach. Something heavy began to form at the bottom of him, deep below his stomach. It was confused, angry, lucid and near outrage. He whirled to the right quickly and rushed at the wall there, but just as the first wall have teased him, the wall to his right was no closer than it had been upon his entry.

The weight of the discover took him to his knees. He forgot everything. He fell to the ground and pounded on it.

"I-I can't…" he screamed, his voice disappearing in the air as thought he very air were thick as cotton. "I don't… Please! I just don't understand-What is happening!"

"Oh stop, Ephraim." her voice cut through him quickly.

"Keri?" he turned his head slight to the side and found her standing just behind him, arms crossed once again.

"Get up, for God's sake. You are a man, start acting that way."

"Keri" her name hung heavy on his tongue. "My mother-that thing, it killed her."

"What thing?" she sighed as she spoke, her foot tapping slightly as though he were a burden to her by simply speaking.

"I don't know what it is. I first saw it in the hallway-" he stopped. "No, not 'saw' it. I felt it. Then I saw it in the Historical Society. It came through the door after I broke the window."

"What are you rambling on about? The only thing I've seen in this town, is you." her face soften, if only slightly. "Ephraim, we are alone here."

Her tone soothed Ephraim. He let out a long breath, stilling his trembling as he climbed to his feet. Her arms unfolded and she pressed out a few folds in the front of her neon yellow dress, adjusted a yellow, silk ribbon in one of her braids. Keri allowed a small smile to cross her face and held out a hand to Ephraim, who took it eagerly. Upon contact, he found something slick between them. He retracted his hand to see that his wounds had oozed so much as to cover his entire hand. The yellow-brown puss had coated his hand. He looked to Keri.

"I'm sorry…" the words were barely audible.

Keri gave a small shake of her head and wiped the liquid off on the skirt of her dress, but as she did so, a large chunk of flesh fell to the ground. Shock spread across Ephraim's face, but Keri remained smiling blissfully. He grabbed at her hand and it turned to liquid at his touch. She began to melt, large chunks of flesh melting away as her insides erupted into the same yellow-brown goo that had flown from his veins. Ephraim could hear screaming but was unable to realize it was coming from him as his dead wife melted away in front of his eyes.

"No! NO! Keri! Please, God-no!"

Her face ran off her skull and she was reduced to a pile of liquid, bubbling on the ground. Huge billows of stinking steam was released from the pile, the smell of rotting gravy being boiled on a stove top. A bubble burst and spewed the molten remains of Keri at Ephraim, scalding his skin where it touched.

He backed away and ran, the puddle growing larger and more violent. Knowing there was no way out, he scanned the room for some exit. Walls in every direction, but it didn't matter. No windows, no doors. Ephraim slammed into a wall, the air banished from his lungs as he clawed at the wall. He drug his brittle fingernails along the wall, the wet hissing of the muck moving closer to him. The white hot liquid hit the back of his feet and the floor gave way beneath him. And beneath the floor there was nothing. The flash of pain seared his entirety. No inch of his body was left untouched, unburned. He sunk deeper, holding his breath though the hot liquid forced its way between his lips and through his teeth. The taste was the worst sensation. It tasted of hot car oil and bad meat. It squeeze in around his mouth and forced its way past his gag reflex, down into his throat. He felt the soft tissue of his throat boil and blister, trying to protect itself.

Disgust and pain torn his mouth open and eyes open and he found himself falling from the bluff. He watched the massive tree split under the harsh flash of light. He cried out, seeing Violet standing aside a figure on the bluff. The figure faced away from him, though Violet's eyes bore through him as he fell. Her face did not display fear for her father's fate, no concern or shock. She seemed unphased, wholly watching the event as though it were nothing in and of itself, just an event in the truest form. It was occurring and she was a witness to it. Nothing else seemed to exist to her as she passively took part in her father's death.

Ephraim struck the ground, the wind rushing from his lungs as though ghostly hands had stolen it. He gripped his torso, his sleeves still wet from the puss oozing from his wounds. He waited for an eternity until his lungs were able to suck in the air that surrounded him. He choked on the air caught in his blistered throat. He swallowed and felt shards of glass sliding down his insides. I gagged, expecting to see blood, but nothing more than clear salvia fell from between his lips.

In the dim light of the area, he became quickly aware of the fact that he was not only residing in a cage, but in a suspended cage that swung and rocked over a deep pit in the ground below him. When he strained his eyes looking beyond the bars, he could see spears erect below him. The wooden handles jutted out from dark earth, the points of the heads watching him closely. Ephraim looked to the means by which he hung. A heavy though aged chain, a large U-joint holding the chains from the top four corners of the cage together, a single bolt held the joint closed and held him high above the pit below.

"Dad help-I'm falling!" A small and strained voice caught his ears. He turned around, the cage rocking gently by his motion, and spotted Violet hanging just beside him. Her hands were bound above her head, dirty rope biting into her soft wrists. Little rivulets of blood slowly crawled down her arms and stained the butter yellow of her dress and ribbons. "I can't feel my arms!"

"Violet! Hang on." He stuck an arm between a couple bars and stretched to reach her, but she was still out of his reach. His eyes darted down to confirm that the pit stretched wide enough to swallow her if she fell.

"Hurry, I can feel the rope loosening!"

"Hold on-just hold on a little longer." He threw his shoulder at the cage, and again, trying to build moment. The cage rocked slowly, but still she was far outside his reach.

"It is no use, Ephraim. You will never reach her in time that way."

The sudden presence of a deep male voice froze Ephraim to his core. He had not heard that voice since the night at the shed but since waking in Silent Hill, had been in the back of his mind.

"Father Joshua?" He did not turn as he spoke.

"Very good, my son." The Father towered over the edge of a platform between the two cages. He wore the same outfit, the robe and the red hood. He raised a hand, a tattered red blindfold lay in his hand, limp with age and neglect. "I have an offer."

"How did you find me?" He heard the voice of a child escape his mouth.

"You were chosen once. A late offering is better than no offering." He spoke slowly, his voice raising in volume over Violet's growing whimpers. "I will spare your daughter if you take this ribbon from my hand and accept your place." He held out the blindfold towards Ephraim's cage.

Ephraim took one look at Violet and then reached for the blindfold. The image of her small, blackened corpse flashed behind his eyelids every time he blinked. The blindfold still smelled of that underground shed. His fingers fumbled as he tried to tie the frayed ends amidst his matted hair.

"Good. Now, reach up." He did as he was told. "Well done, do you feel the U-joint?"

A heaviness built up in his stomach as he realized what he was going to be asked to do. His fingers had been numb since waking and then after he took the stitched out, the numbness had turned the fingers into stiff and foreign objects attached to the end of his palm. He moved them around in the air until he felt the back of one hand graze a chain. He brought the other hand up and followed it upward to where they all met at the U-joint. He used the back of his hand to find the end of the bolt that jutted out, then wrapped his thenar around the bolt end. He took a deep breath.

"Very good, now pull the pin. Save your daughter, kill yourself."

He pulled back as far as the bars would allow him, the bolt fell from his grasp just as he heard Violet scream out. The trajectory of her screams ripped the blindfold from his eyes, his hands moving with more finesse then they had since he cut his arms open. Violet fell, her small body growing smaller until she met with the hungry spears below.

"NO!" The call burst forth from his very soul. "You killed her!" Ephraim screamed at Father Joshua, who had folded his hands neatly behind his back.

"Don't give me credit for what I have not done. She died three years ago. Fire I believe…" He motioned down to the pit which promptly combusted into dark smoke that enveloped Ephraim.

He coughed and screamed. He grabbed the sides of the cage and shook the entire thing harshly. Scream after guttural scream wreaked from inside him until the smoke was so thick he could no longer breathe. His vision gone completely, his consciousness was not far behind.

This time as Ephraim's eyes opened, he felt nothing. He did not feel the dull ache of numbness in his hands nor the sting of blisters in his throat. There was nothing. He felt nothing outside the heaviness within his chest. Twice he had been ready to die and twice denied. He watched his wife and daughter die again before his eyes. There was nothing he had left. He wept. Amidst sniffles he heard something move. He looked over to the source and found Father Joshua standing still as a statue.

"Why?" Ephraim asked.

"I told you, you were chosen." He removed something from behind him. A canvas.

"I don't paint." Ephraim said, settling back against the wall that he found himself sitting against. The room was no larger than his studio, in fact if lighted properly he would think it was his studio. A strange, dense fog hung over everything. A large table took up most of the room. It was slanted slightly, allowing his more reach while painting. A chair set off in a corner next to a smaller sketching table. A bookshelf was off along another wall, but as he reached out to touch the bookshelf, he found it flat. It was not actually his studio but an elaborate painting of his studio upon the walls of the room.

"Don't or won't?" Father Joshua asked as he set the canvas down on table in the center of the room. "We've been through this quiet a few times already, Ephraim."

"What…?"

"You've gone through this cycle about half a dozen times now. How many more times do you want to met your lover just to watch her die? How many more times do you want to kill your mother? Your daughter?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"It wasn't a solid gold nugget of random luck that you decided Silent Hill was the place to kill yourself in."

"I don't even know where that is."

"This is Silent Hill." He motioned around to nothing in particular. "As soon as you were ready to end yourself, you brought yourself here because the town called you- I called you."

"Just because of some painting?"

"It is not _just_ a painting, Ephraim. It will change everything about this town."

"How do you figure that?"

"It will start with one man and it will blossom into many." He folded his hands together slowly and stepped back from the table.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then you will endure this forever. Time does not move the same here. Forever is a very, very long time in Silent Hill."

The heavy weight inside Ephraim's stomach doubled and sank lower. Before him, beside the canvas on the table, was several small bowls and brushes. He picked the bowls up and found them to be empty. As he examined one, a few drops of yellow liquid dropped from his sleeve into another bowl.

"You will put everything you are made of into this painting." Father Joshua's voice echoed from the shadows, just beyond Ephraim's field of vision.

Ephraim pulled back his sleeve and found the skin intact. His knife was tucked under the brushes. He grabbed the knife, flipped open the blade and pressed it against his wrist. He pulled the blade cleanly through his skin, the flesh pulling apart and yellow-brown liquid flowed from him for a few moments before the skin closed, fusing back together flawlessly.

He repeated the motion and found that this time, deep red blood pour from his other arm, filling up the second bowl just as much as the first before the wound closed. He cut his palm open and some brown-red liquid flowed while the other palm produced a thick, milky-white substance.

A full palette in his reach, he grabbed a brush. He rubbed a thumb over it, taking in the fine detail of each hair moving over the edge and down his finger. He noted the texture of the brushes, the different colors and somewhere deep inside knew they were made of the hair of his mother, wife and daughter.

His cheeks grew hot, heavy tracks of tears sliding over his face as his hand wavered over a bowl, brush nestling back between his fingers as though the handle had been contoured perfectly for his hand and his alone. He dipped the brush into the whitish substance and held it over the canvas.

"Paint me, daddy." A soft voice cooed.

Ephraim didn't bother to turn his eyes from the canvas, the shadow of his arms extended above the surface stretched out before him.

"I'm sorry." the words barely passed his lips.

"What?"

"I should've stayed."

"Oh daddy, you are silly!" She let out a giggle. The clicking of her dress shoes tapped along as she moved over to the side of the desk and climbed up.

She moved awkwardly, her joints seemed stiff, her pigtails swung back and forth as she climbed up onto the table he was working on. Her hand slipped as she climbed, her elbow jutting out and sending the bowls of liquid all over the canvas. Ephraim drew in a sharp breath, an internal hiss of anger at an action. Violet instantly recoiled in her father's distain. She tried to scramble back farther on the table and as her small hand connected with the soaking canvas she tipped low and was gone, into the canvas. The liquid that had flown from Ephraim's arms hours before was suddenly hot and bubbling. Violet's legs kicked violently as he tried to grab after her.

"Violet! NO!" His eyes scanned the room quickly. He looked around for something to use, someone to help him. Her small legs kicked as muffled, gargled screams rose up in thick bubbles, breaking the surface of the muck and erupting. Hot spray landing all over Ephraim's face. A foot connected with Ephraim's nose, sending him back. He tripped over the chair he'd been sitting in.

From on his back, he looked up and watched the small legs disappear under the surface. He moved as fast as he could, warm blood oozing out his nostrils. Shoving his arms into the canvas, he found it solid again, a wash of color already setting. He looked under the table frantically but only saw empty space between the underside of the table and the ground, though far off he could hear Violet's small screams echoing.

"Violet?! NO! Violet! Joshua!" He growled as he threw the empty bowls off the table.

He clawed at the canvas, trying to get within it to get Violet. Blood from his nose dropped and pooled on the canvas. He noted rough shapes as he felt his arms growing tired and his soul growing heavy. His legs gave way under him and he found himself sitting in the chair again, looking at the canvas.

"Paint." Joshua said calmly, his wrinkled hand closing around Ephraim's wrist, the other placing a brush between his fingers.

Ephraim felt heavy tears growing cool on his cheeks while the fire in his gut suffocated and hibernated in a numbness. The image formed in his mind. He could see it. Misty Day, Remains of Judgment. The brush streaked the blood across the canvas, the outlines becoming more and more defined. The figures becoming real. The Punisher. His victims. It was as he'd seen them. They came to life there before him. With feverish movements, he watched his hands work. The brush molding the image in his head, manifesting it into being before his eyes.

He worked until his hands were numb. He worked while his wrists poured his life-blood all over the piece. Worked until his toes grew black and his joints went taut. He worked until he died, his head laying down slowly as his eyes went out of focus. Father Joshua appeared above him, carefully removing the masterpiece. It showed a humanoid figure, a metal pyramid atop his shoulders in place of his head. He brandished a spear, victims hanging in metal cages, laying on the ground-only their feet able to be seen. The figure just right of center captivated the eyes. The fear, hate and disgust wafted off the canvas. Somewhere behind the metal, eyes stared the observer down. They bore into Father Joshua's eyes, seeing deep into his being, seeing everything he had ever done. It made him sick to see. It sent his stomach into knots, nervousness buzzing around inside him like flies and maggots on rotting meat.

He looked away, looking down at what remained of Ephraim.

'_Poor Ephraim' _He thought "You had no choice. You never escaped them. You and I, we were tools from the beginning."

He tucked the painting under his arm and moved towards the far wall, looking once over his shoulder to see Ephraim's body now leaning against a tree a few feet from his 1913 Chevrolet Series C. The dead farmer, the tortured painter, the accepted and exceptional sacrifice's eyes watched the sun of July 17th, 1915 rise while Father Joshua walked into the sunset of July 17th, 2000. He stepped into The Silent Hill Historical Society and placed the painting in its place.

"Oh look, James. They have more back here." A woman's voice called from the front room.

Father Joshua watched the couple come around the corner and begin admiring the items in the glass case set in the middle of the room.

"James Sunderland." Father Joshua said. The young man was not much younger than Ephraim, even of similar build-for a moment, Father Joshua saw a glimmer of something that truly was Ephraim Ward within James Sunderland.

"James?" The woman beside him said, catching her husband enraptured by the painting on the wall. She watched him move over to it, his eyes looking through her, unblinking.

"Misty Day," He spoke. "Remains of Judgment." His voice was hollow, an echo in it that Father Joshua doubted anyone else could hear.

"I don't like that." Mary said, a visible shiver running down her spine. "James, let's go look around the other display cases."

"Yeah…" He backed away from the painting slowly, not taking his eyes off it until her had to turn the corner to make his way into another of the back rooms.

"And it has begun." Father Joshua's voice hung on the air long after he was gone.

The room was still again, only the distant tapping of feet on hardwood flooring as various guests passed in and out of the Historical Society. Countless eyes passed over the painting, but few truly saw it for what it was. It was a message. A beginning. A tool, just as it's artist had been.


End file.
